


Why So Silent?

by mundanecactus



Series: Angel of Music, Devil's Child [1]
Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Child Abuse, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Female Phantom, Fix-It, Get rid of that weird father/daughter dynamic, Unhealthy Relationships, phantom-apologist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23569945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mundanecactus/pseuds/mundanecactus
Summary: Some speak of a Phantom of the Opera, a ghostly voice in the walls that preludes only misfortune. Others speak of an Angel of Music, which teaches with preternatural grace and honeyed words. None quite know the truth of what it wants, save the owner of that voice, and very rarely does that voice tell the truth - even to itself.Fix-it for Phantom of the Opera - 75% less creepy, 100% fewer weird father-lover dynamics, better age gaps, female Phantom. In this house we love and support the Phantom, even if she does commit a murder or two. She's justified.
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Raoul de Chagny/Christine Daaé
Series: Angel of Music, Devil's Child [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789978
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	1. Prologue

Antoinette Giry is sixteen years of age when her fellows in the ballet dormitories convince her to sneak out to the carnival grounds. They are largely silly girls—gifted with some measure of talent, certainly, but without the good sense to know that carousing around after dark is a great way to be exhausted in rehearsal tomorrow morning. Antoinette sighs, and accompanies them all the same; she is one of the eldest, and already she feels some measure of responsibility to keep them from squandering themselves. They bustle out the back doors in a giggling knot, Antoinette following at the back to make sure none of them get themselves lost. Paris can be dangerous after dark for a lone young woman, but together, she presumes things will be fine.

The carnival is reminiscent of the opera, oddly enough; Antoinette supposes performers recognize performers, or at least she can see through the cracks of the terrifying characters the workers seem to put on. The other girls don’t seem to feel the same—they shriek and giggle as greasy men in patched clothes leer at them and encourage them to see the famous sword swallower, the impossible firewalkers, the Devil’s Child. The last attraction garners the girls’ attention, and they tug at Antoinette’s skirts. “Oh please, Antoinette, may we go?”

Antoinette sighs. “Yes, but just this one.” The particular fellow hawking the Devil’s Child grins gap-toothed and draws the curtain aside, collecting francs at the door as the cohort of ballerinas files in. It is oppressively hot in here, the heavy summer air stifling under the canvas of the tent, and Antoinette swallows back nausea at the scent of manure and sweat inside. 

The hawker follows them in, speaking in a thick foreign accent, and gestures to a shadowy steel-barred cage in the middle of the floor. “Come in, come in. All situated, ladies? Delightful, delightful, yes. Without further ado—I introduce you to… the Devil’s Child.”

All at once a shaft of light falls inward from some concealed flap within the tent, and a hunched figure within the cage is cast into sharp relief. Thin, Antoinette notices, and young—no more than eight or nine. A child indeed. It wears a rough sack for a shift, and notably, a bag over its head—the corners tied into little owl-like ears that almost seem endearing. It lifts its head, and Antoinette can see a gash for the mouth, two holes for the eyes.

The door of the cage screeches, and the hawker enters, fingering what looks like a riding crop at his belt. “Off with it,” he grunts, and the child lowers its head again, curling in tight. The hawker’s mouth presses out into a thin line, and he raises the crop, then brings it down—hard. Antoinette winces; the girls murmur, shocked. But the whipping seems to have uncurled the figure from its protective position at least a little, and the hawker roughly seizes one of the corners of the mask, yanks it off. “Behold,” he says, grinning widely, and now none of the girls are murmuring. They are staring, mouths agape. Even Antoinette finds her jaw slack; the nausea rises again, and she has a harder time swallowing it back.

Devil’s child, indeed.

The murmurs resurge as the hawker hauls the child roughly to its feet, and as he shoves it by the shoulder into the bars the girls shriek, breaking into outright jeers. A glower—is that a glower?—rises to the child’s, the thing’s face, and Antoinette stays silent, finding herself inexplicably pained by its anger. The others titter and laugh, the hawker forces the child’s freakish face into the light, and Antoinette cringes.

Eventually the novelty wears off, and the girls trail away. She means to go, but something arrests her—the sight of the child cringing down, recovering its sack of a mask, rearranging it. It’s so human, so inhuman… It stumbles a bit, into its handler, and the man raises the crop again, lashing as Antoinette presses back into the shadows. It’s horrible, horrible, but there’s nothing she can think to do. No power she has to stop him.

The hawker drops the crop in disgust as the child curls up on the floor, and turns away, pawing through his pile of francs. Antoinette watches for a moment, about ready to leave and drag the girls back to the opera, as the child lifts its head and watches the hawker. Its body language shifts—less cringing, more full of purpose. Antoinette frowns—what does it mean to do? What can it do? It kicks a bit of rope from the floor up into its hand, creeps behind the man, and as Antoinette claps a horrified hand over her mouth, loops it around the man’s neck. There is a violent struggle; the child must be immensely strong, if it can hold off against a grown man. The man’s face goes a horrible color; the eyes of the mask stare, impassive; the man crumples to the floor of the cage. The child shoves him aside, readjusts its mask, and looks up. It sees Antoinette.

Before either of them can react, a shout goes up; the murder had not been a quiet affair, and all of a sudden Antoinette hears police whistles, sees torchlight moving outside. She looks back at the child, and all of a sudden, she is moving forward—around the door of the cage, to seize its thin wrist, and runs. She forgets her charges from the ballet dormitories, she forgets the horror of the child’s face and actions. This child was whipped in front of her—she let it happen! Something guilty and protective blooms in her chest, and she looks back, as the child scrambles along behind her, down the riverside street, back the way they’d come, back towards the Opera Populaire.

“I’ll protect you!” she calls back over the rush of the night wind. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

“Why?” the child says back, heavily accented. Antoinette stares in shock—the voice is a girl’s. The child is a girl.

“Because you deserve better,” she says firmly, and skids down the alley to the back door. “Quickly, in here.”

The girl obeys—evidently, she’s not too picky about where to hide. Antoinette takes the stairs down to the basement chapel two at a time, crosses herself in a rush, and stops to take stock of the girl. “Okay, okay.” She glances around wildly. “You’ll stay here, and you’ll be safe.” The mask gazes back, impassively. “But you must stay out of sight—only the ballerinas are supposed to be in the dormitories. The cellars here go on for miles—you’ll be able to find somewhere to hide. I’ll bring you blankets, and food.” Still, stony silence. “Come now, I know you can speak. What’s your name?”

“I don’t… have one.” Her voice sounds rough from disuse, and Antoinette sees her cross one bare foot over the other. She’s cold or embarrassed or both. “Devil’s Child.”

“No, we… we won’t use that,” Antoinette decides. “How about… Erika?”

The child shrugs. “If you like.”

“Yes, well.” Antoinette glances around again, suddenly remembering the girls she left back at the fair. Some of the older ones should be able to take care of themselves, but the tug of responsibility… Is this what it’s like to be a mother? She looks back down at the child with the bag over her head, and sighs. “Alright. Er, Erika. I will be back. I promise.” She gestures vaguely to the stain-glass window. “Er—you can pray, here, or go find somewhere… I’ll be back.” And Antoinette rushes back out, back into the night and to the carnival grounds, where police officers mill around the tents and the ballerinas cluster close, fearful. Antoinette gathers them back up, directs them out of the fairgrounds like so many sheep, and brings them back to the dormitories. They joke and giggle to each other over the excitements of the evening, unaware of what, exactly, had happened, and one by one, drop off to sleep. They’ll be exhausted and unruly in the morning, but right now, Antoinette has bigger concerns. Because, when she creeps down the stairs to the chapel, an extra quilt in her arms, she finds it empty.

She leaves the blanket on the altar, returns to her cot, and presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. Another charge. Someone who needed her help, she hopes. Someone she hopes she will not regret helping.


	2. Pretty Things

She grows up in the walls of the Opera Populaire, plumbing the depths of hidden tunnels and passages, venturing forth only to obtain food and the necessary things to survive. It is dank, and cold, but there are no whippings, and she does not have to remove her mask. Madame—the name she comes to know her by, the name the girls in the dormitory call her—brings her all she needs, at first, and that gives her the start she needs to make a home for herself. She discovers a lake, deep beneath the subcellar, and eventually cobbles together a raft from discarded props. Its far shores, too, holds old things from the opera house above—an enormous bedlike thing, bundles and bundles of sodden candles, a strange massive thing that emits sounds when she touches its buttons. She can tell there’s something horribly wrong with it; the repeating pattern of the buttons matches no recognizable repeating sound. The bed, however, is a welcome find, and she determines for a while to spend her time here, and to try to fix the sound-making thing. For some reason it interests her, even in its broken state. 

Madame tells her it is an organ, next time they meet. She sees Madame less now, and each time she does, Madame seems to have grown larger under her dress. She does not dance anymore—she used to watch from the rafters when Madame danced, but now she forgoes it in favor of toying with the organ. Madame tells her that she is pregnant, and that soon she will have a baby. She is surprised; she didn’t know Madame was interested in that sort of thing. Madame explains to her that the organ is an instrument, for the playing of music. Now, she never knew anything about music before coming to the opera house, but that has changed significantly. All hours of the day and night, music rings through the Opera Populaire. From the singers warming up to the pit rehearsing its cues to the whole thing together, operas in languages she doesn’t speak performed every night that resonate in her lungs and tug at her gut. She has been curious since the day she arrived, how she might participate. Sometimes she sings to herself in the deeps, her voice echoing back like a partner in a duet, but she has nothing to check herself against. Until now.

She returns to the organ, and sets about working on it, poking at its buttons—keys, they are called—and adjusting it accordingly. It is painstaking work, and her ears ring by the end of each day. But at last, the keys sing true when she presses them, and she returns to tell Madame of her good fortune.

To her surprise, Madame is not in their meeting place, and venturing into the upper reaches of the opera house explains why. She finds her in the lobby across from a party of dark suited men. Their voices echo into the rafters where she hides.

“The consumption… he finally succumbed, and she is alone in the world.”

“A true shame. Gustave Daaé was… a genius, truly. If his daughter carries even part of his talent…”

“Indeed.” Madame’s voice, quiet and wondering. She sees her crouch slowly and painfully, open her arms. “Dear girl, what is your name?”

She’s surprised; Madame asked her the same question when she took her in. She never much took to the name Madame chose for her, and she wonders if Madame will choose a name for this person, too. Evidently not; she seems to have an answer. “Christine,” comes a small, clear voice, and if she cranes her neck, she can see its owner. A small girl with big eyes and curly hair, dressed in fine clothes with silver buttons. She rubs at the collar of her own shirt; it’s a stained cast-off from the costume department. “Christine Daaé.”

After that day, she sees Madame even less. Or, she sees her in person less. She watches from the rafters and the passageways still, curious about the little girl and, to a lesser extent, Madame’s baby. The girl—Christine—is seven years old, as she proudly tells many people. She does not know how old she is, exactly, but Madame has told her that she is probably around eleven years old. So she is four years older. She’s been teaching herself math in her spare time—Madame has slipped her some old piano primers, and she reads about fourths and fifths and octaves. The little girl doesn’t seem to learn much of anything in her spare time—she starts ballet with the other girls her age, but for a great part, she sits quietly, and occasionally cries. She figures this has something to do with the person whose daughter she is, or was.

But still, Madame is busy with the little girl and the baby, and she finds that Madame misses their meetings. She wouldn’t mind, except that when she comes up from learning chords, she finds herself hungry, and when Madame has not brought her food… One such night, she decides to look for some herself. She finds a pantry in the back of the dormitory, and eats her fill, then takes some for herself—just in case Madame forgets again.

She walks quietly past the beds towards the loose floorboard that leads to the crawlspace, treading on her toes to avoid waking the ballerinas around her. They sleep hard, exhausted, and years of sneaking around have made her quiet. Which is why, when she sees the red ribbon hanging on the bedpost of the little girl, Christine Daaé, she pauses.

It’s a pretty thing, and she has very few pretty things. Not so with Christine—she has a trunk full of pretty dresses with more silver buttons. She’s seen Christine wear this in her hair; her own hair is ill-kempt, given that it spends much of its time secreted under her mask. But if she were on the underground lake, at the organ, she could take the mask off, and tie her own hair back with the ribbon… She slowly, carefully, extends a hand—takes it between her fingers, feels how satiny and smooth it is…

“Are you… an angel?”

She starts, and looks down—the little girl is staring up at her from the bed, looking fearful and wondering at the same time. She freezes.

Christine repeats her question. “Only, because, I don’t know what an angel looks like, and my daddy said he would send me one. And I don’t know what you look like, so…”

She doesn’t know what to say; she knows what an angel looks like from the stained glass downstairs and Madame’s explanations, and it doesn’t look like her. She was a Devil’s child once—the very opposite. She swallows, her hand still on the ribbon. And, eager to get away, she lies.

“I… am,” she says slowly, forcing her accent out of her words to sell the impression. “Go… to sleep.”

The little girl sighs, and smiles a little. It’s a pretty thing, that smile, and she has so few pretty things. “Good. Will you say hello to my daddy?”

“I… will…” she says slowly. “Dream, now. I cannot if you are… looking at me.” The little girl obediently shuts her eyes, and she pulls the ribbon the rest of the way off the bedpost, tucking it into her pocket. She backs away, taking pains to be silent, and goes back the way she’d come.

***

“An angel, little Christine? Don’t be preposterous! Angels have faces!”

“This one didn’t!”

“More likely a ghost, hmm, Claudia? The managers are up in arms over it—someone broke into the pantry and stole a bunch of stuff. No one came in through the outside doors, though, and the ballerinas were locked in their dormitory. Only a ghost could’ve done it, they said—a phantom.”

“You’re telling me that a phantom appeared, stole a bunch of food, and then appeared to little Christine in a dream?”

“Stranger things. A phantom of our own—the phantom of the opera!”

***

She rather likes that—better than the name Madame picked her, anyway. Phantom. The Phantom. She also likes hearing how surprised the managers are by her heist; she knows the passages of the opera house well, but she supposes not everyone has studied so hard. She feels rather inclined to flaunt her knowledge, after her success—a bit of attention, at least, since Madame’s visits have nearly evaporated. She ties her hair back with the red ribbon under her mask, and attempts the costume shop next, looking for something with silver buttons. She finds far more than that, oh, yes, she does. She’s been dressed in castoffs her whole life, but here—here she finds pretty, beautiful things. Velvet, brocade, damask, all identified in manuals kept by the women who come in here to sew. Skirts, and bodices, and lacy stockings—but these interest her little. She can’t sneak through the opera house in wide petticoats. No, she’s seen chorus girls dressed up as soldiers and courtiers and boys, and that is what she wants. Stylish vests, trousers, tall leather boots. They make her footsteps heavier, but they also make her taller, and as she looks at herself in the mirror, she almost feels happy. The bag is ugly, but the rest… the rest looks less like a devil’s child. More like an angel.

But after a moment, all she can look at is the bag, and though she wants to see the ribbon with the rest of the ensemble, she fears removing it and seeing… what lies underneath. She hesitates for a moment before the mirror, her stomach turning over, and then notices behind her—a box, labelled with the name of a production from a few months back. An opera about porcelain dolls come to life, in which the main character had… worn a mask… 

She tears into the box, and after a moment, finds her quarry—the bone white mask. She doesn’t need all of it; she snatches up shears from the table, painstakingly cuts the lower half of the face off. Her mouth is not horrible, and she would have it free to sing, if she intends to wear this down below. She takes off the bag, being careful not to look in the mirror, and quickly applies the mask to her face. The effort to look up to the mirror is tremendous, but finally, she manages it—and oh… it’s not so bad. This way she almost looks… normal. Not strange—anonymous, nearly. Pale, strange-eyed, hidden in dark clothes and behind a mask. Like a phantom. Like the Phantom.

***

The ballerinas begin to complain of hearing organ music, not from the stage, but echoing from deep in the bowels of the building. Few take it seriously; few take the ballerinas seriously, since they are so often silly girls. But Christine Daaé listens to them, and she lies awake, listening hard for the ghostly music. Sometimes, she can nearly hear it—strange, like nothing of this world. Heavenly beautiful—perhaps, even, angelic. She sings back, sometimes—just in case. She rarely hears anything she could call a refrain. But even fewer listen to her theory of the Angel of Music. Only little Meg, and little Meg would believe anything she said. The strange music, the disappearances, the bad moods of the managers and the occasional note—everyone else believes them to be the work of the Phantom.


	3. Think of Me

“Again, dear Christine…”

The voice drifts down from above once more, echoing around the small stone chapel, and Christine sighs. Her throat is sore already from hours of this, but dutifully she sings the arpeggio again. The voice mirrors hers, an octave below, with the forceful timbre that Christine has never been able to replicate for it. Her voice has always been a touch too whispery, too thin—like a flute to the clarinet of the Angel’s. It never seems to tire, or to get hoarse like hers. “Come now—the C, reach…”

She manages to grate it out; now her throat is really raw, and she finds herself panting once the voice cuts her off. “Rest, for now. Once you are healed, you may return.”

“Thank you,” she says hoarsely, and bows before the altar, then backs away and returns to the dormitories. She’s exhausted—her body aching from ballet rehearsal, her throat burned out, her bed cold under the window. It cannot be healthy, these long days and longer nights. But, she reminds herself, removing the locket that holds her father’s portrait from around her neck, it is a blessing as well. The Angel of Music has chosen her—her father has sent her the Angel of Music. And exhausted as she is, chafe as she does against its mandates and hurt as her throat does, she must make the most of that blessing. For she hears it—under her own cracked voice, in the walls, in the witching hour, with the rest of the dormitory asleep. She hears it sing, and she hears it play the organ—ghostly, far off. And the beauty of it… the impossible tone, the eerie chords, the unfailing melody, for hours upon mysterious hours… She must know how it does what it does. If she can even approach—if she can even paint a modest sketch of the sound with her own voice—

Well, her father must have known the Angel as well. She intends to make him proud.

***

Christine’s problem is that she has never been desperate. The Phantom comes to this realization one day, watching ballet practice from the rafters, trying her best to ignore the stage manager Buquet and his underlings sniggering to each other in the crow’s nest below her. Madame Giry taps out a rhythm for the dancers, and effortlessly, Christine follows it—her dancing seems weightless, easy. The other girls strain, pant, sweat, but Christine never struggles; her talent, it seems, has carried her this far. She is twenty-one, and for a while the Phantom has wondered whether that talent will run out, whether she will find herself confronted with the harsh reality of practice. It has not done so yet.

To be fair, the Phantom has her talents too—she knows this. She recognizes them, but she practices in tandem. The understanding of music was innate; the dexterity required to play the organ was not. She sings constantly, building endurance in her lungs and forcing her range out to its extremes. And of course, she struggles—she makes an uneasy treaty with the rats that threaten her food supplies in the cellars, she builds stopgaps and traps against those who might someday seek to root her out, and she beseeches, argues, and threatens her way into an allowance from the managers. They’ve tried to find her—hiring detectives to sniff out the perpetrator of small arsons, mishaps, unlucky coincidences. The detectives never succeed, perhaps because they tend to assume they are looking for a large man, if a man and not a ghost. The Phantom remains rather thin even as she grows taller; she can manage most places that they would only expect a ghost to be able to traverse. They never reach her, but that is her work—balancing attack and defense, striving for more and then falling back to protect what she has. It is work, and it makes her strong.

Christine’s voice remains thin, despite the other aspects of her technique being good. That is why the Phantom pushes her; she theorizes that if she can break Christine, drag her from a note to a scream, then she can finally get her to put her lungs where her tone is. Strength comes from opposition, and if Christine would only learn…

But enough. She quibbles, but really, these are the complaints of a master teaching a prodigy. Christine’s voice is beautiful, her dancing impeccable… she could be the youngest prima donna in a century, if only Carlotta would give it up. Now, Carlotta has the opposite problem—she sees opposition in everything, and allows that strength to carry her through without technique. The Phantom does not like Carlotta. Tone deaf, and shrill, and egotistical. No, Christine really would do better as a leading lady—with the Phantom’s guidance, of course. With the Phantom’s guidance, with her own talent, with just that little bit of struggle, Christine could be something incredible.

***

The day of the Gala arrives—the opening night of Chalameaux’s Hannibal, and the Phantom’s fingers itch with the desire to do something. Carlotta does her usual shrieking, in song and in speech, and Madame Giry runs ballet drills. There have been whispers and rumors about, speaking of changes to come, but the Phantom knows better than most—today the new managers arrive, along with a patron, to take control of operations. She has mischiefs planned in order to put them in their places. She has broken in managers before, and theater folk are a superstitious lot; one way or another, she finds herself an item on the budget. Of course, she goes out to use her accumulated money but rarely, purchasing food and candles and stationery and other sundries under cover of cloak and darkness. She doubts it will take even half her savings before these new managers bring her onto the payroll.

Sure enough, they arrive about midday, interrupting the frantic last minute preparations. Carlotta is still complaining over her dress, and the ballet girls whisper to each other as the gentlemen tour the opera house. Two older men with absurd mustaches are clearly the new managers; a young blond man follows, gazing around with interest. His appearance sends the ballerinas into fresh titters. She presumes he must be the patron; the ballerinas are always pining over the idea of finding rich husbands.

The following proceedings do not interest her much. The managers chat, Madame Giry tries in vain to corral the girls back into rehearsal, and something irritates Carlotta, though the Phantom is not paying attention well enough to determine what it is. Christine and Meg Giry conspire in the back, gazing at the blond man. The Phantom is annoyed by this; she assumed Christine was more dedicated than that, that her ambition was stronger than the prospect of catching the patron’s eye. She reaches out, plucking bad-temperedly at the rigging in the rafters, and dangles a booted foot out over the stage. “Isn’t there a rather marvellous aria in act three for Alyssa?” one of the new managers simpers, and Carlotta straightens up. The Phantom growls to herself. No more. Not more of Carlotta.

But Carlotta sings anyway, and the Phantom’s teeth grate. God, the woman’s voice shrills through her skull. Awful, horrible, wretched woman—if only Christine could sing it instead, it would be much more palatable. She twangs at the rope holding a set piece for the show once more, but the sound doesn’t cut Carlotta’s attempt at the aria. Christine could hit those notes without shrilling… Christine could…

The idea comes to her simply, and she acts with alacrity. A knife she keeps in her boot—a slash of a rope already pulled taut—the set piece crashes to ground, and Carlotta shrieks, but for once it’s warranted. It didn’t kill her; probably for the best, but she’s outraged, just as planned. Quickly, the Phantom moves—she drops one of the notes meant for the managers as a calling-card, leaves the rafters, climbs down a crawlspace in the proscenium, watches from a chink in the bricks. They can’t find her up there—of course not. And Carlotta is leaving, and Madame Giry finds the note, as expected. The managers panic of course, and of course Madame Giry is there to supply a solution, as she always is. She holds this theater together, truly. The Phantom breaks into a smile as she watches—“Christine Daaé could sing it, sir.” Madame’s eyes are on the note, her brows knit ever-so-slightly together. She’s wondering what the Phantom’s plans are, as if she hasn’t just delivered the objective right into her hands. Christine Daaé will sing it.

Carlotta shut up, Christine rewarded with success for her hard work, and refocused. The patron may be attractive or rich or whatever other traits could possibly make the ballerinas swoon so, but Christine will not be one of them—tonight, she will take a step towards the Phantom instead.


	4. The Mirror

The experience that follows Christine's operatic debut is nearly enough to drive her off the career entirely. Carlotta must be a tiny woman, or else well-used to tightlacing, for Christine has not taken a proper breath in this costume for several hours, including those while she was onstage. Which made singing difficult, as did the terror of facing the crowds—crowds which included Raoul! It must have been fifteen years since they last... but he hadn't seemed to notice... or perhaps he had, but had decided to ignore her... that and the shortness of breath and the hordes of well-wishers haranguing her would have been enough, but her stomach is empty and a flute of champagne has been placed in her hand. By the time Madame Giry leads her into the dressing room that had been Carlotta's just this morning—gaudily decorated and sporting a disapproving full-length painting of the woman herself—Christine feels very lightheaded, very sick, and very afraid. Is this what life is like now? Has she been too ambitious for herself? Had Raoul even recognized her? 

"Rest, and change out of your costume," Madame Giry advises, elbowing the last of the stragglers out the door. "I will come get you once they have gone." 

"Thank you," says Christine, mournfully surveying the scads of roses heaped around her dressing table. "For the help and the opportunity both, Madame Giry." 

"Of course, dear. Though you bring yourself the opportunity by learning to sing so well." 

"Mmm." Christine has kept the lessons from the Angel of Music to herself, except for Meg. She doesn't think she could bear the disbelief from others anymore, and anyway, it's her own special thing, isn't it? Isn't it? God, she feels awful. Madame Giry slips back out and she crosses behind the rice paper screen in the corner, divesting of her costume. Oh, that's a bit better. 

She hears the door creak open, and startles a bit, before casting about for her dressing gown. "Er—who is it?" 

"Well, I heard this was the room of a Little Lottie—but all I hear is a grown woman..." 

She stifles a gasp, then grins and throws her robe about herself. "Oh, she's here alright." And so is he—Raoul, all grown up, tall and finely dressed and smiling at her! She walks carefully over to him and kisses his cheek, hoping that no smell of champagne lingers on her breath. "I thought I saw you," he says conversationally, "but what with that other woman dropping out, and Andre and Firmin panicking, why, I had no time to confirm my suspicions. And yet here you are! Where, my dear Christine, did you learn to sing like that?" 

Christine, who has been sipping at some lemon water in an effort to get her head to stop spinning—is it butterflies or illness?—nearly chokes on it. She laughs, almost as a stalling tactic. "You wouldn't believe me." 

"I would," he insists. "I would believe anything after that performance you just gave. Your debut, was it not?" He smiles, his teeth bright white and even in the lamplight. "Angelic." 

"Angelic," she murmurs, her hand tightening a bit on the glass, and she looks up at him. "Well, when Father died, Raoul—" 

"A great tragedy," he says, almost automatically. 

"He... he told me that when he was in heaven, he would send me the Angel of Music." She swallows. "Well, he has, Raoul. The Angel of Music taught me to sing." 

He grins wider at that—no doubt remembering the old stories of magic they used to tell one another. "No doubt in my mind, Christine. By the way—are you craving anything in particular? A patron had really ought to take his leading lady out to dinner after such a triumph as that." 

She's not sure whether he actually does believe her. She shakes her head, and the effort of it drives a nail of headache in behind her eye. "Er, I appreciate the offer, but..." But she has lessons with the Angel later? "But I feel somewhat unwell, to be truthful." 

"Come now," he protests. "A little food in your stomach and you'll be ready to chat the night away. Change, and meet me outside, and you may decide where we go! Humor me—for a little while at least." She hesitates, and he stands. "Two minutes, Little Lottie," he jokes, and leaves her to herself. The door closes, and she groans. Seems Raoul has never grown out of that eagerness to charge forward.

She does not particularly want to go, but she supposes it’s part of her duty—as a leading lady. Not because she dislikes Raoul or anything—completely the opposite. But it’s all too much, too new, all at once. She needs time to adjust, or to sleep on it, or, or… her breath starts coming quicker as she changes into a dress she doesn’t care for and her stomach twists in knots. Too much, too much, too much. It’s almost a blessing when she realizes the lights have blown themselves out.

“Insolent boy, this slave of passion, careless of your feelings.” The voice comments in a sing-song way, an old game of theirs. It sings a melody, and she must copy with whatever she wants to say. “Ignorant fool, this brave young suitor—co-opting our triumph!”

“Angel, he is my friend—forgive him. He means no harm by it,” Christine sings back, taking it up the octave. “I had no plan to cheat our meeting—stay by my side, guide me.”

“Excellent internal rhyme,” the voice responds, begrudging. It drops the melody. “Cheat-meeting. Bravo.”

“Only by your grace, wisest mentor,” she answers, teasing by keeping up the song. “Enter at last, master.” She feels better already—this, this is familiar. This is hers.

The voice laughs—high, clear, musical—and takes up a new tune. “Flattering girl, you do know me—you know why in shadow I lie. If you’re so desperate to meet me, meet me mirror-side.”

She frowns at this, and turns to the mirror, ringed with bouquets and roses, and slowly approaches. Her heart is in her throat—this, too, is new, but she feels braver about it. She sees herself—her pale face, her arm outstretched—and then, as if it appeared, or had always been there, another.

She closes her eyes, suddenly terrified, and her fingertips meet cold glass. Until… suddenly, the glass isn’t there. The cold is now warm.

Christine is holding the Angel of Music’s hand.

She opens her eyes, and stares, stupified, as the Angel of Music raises a single, gloved finger to its lips. Dimly she finds herself aware of rattling from behind her—someone pounding on the door, trying to drag her out no doubt. Christine glances back, the whole thing feeling like a dream, and then turns away, back to the Angel. She nods, and the Angel’s lips curve into a smile. It pulls her through the mirror.

***

Christine cannot close her eyes—there’s too much to see. She finds herself in a stone passageway, lit by beautiful candelabras and echoing with the sound of far-away music. She drinks in the sound of those eerie chords, clearer than they’ve ever sounded. Are they close to that mysterious organ? Or is it the Angel’s presence? She musters the bravery to raise her eyes to her companion’s visage. So much different from what she had seen all those years ago, and yet—the same grace, the same voice. She idly wonders whether the Angel appears as Christine herself does; when she was seven, she saw the Angel as a child, and now, it appears in the form of a young woman, just as herself. It is taller than her, though, and strong—she can feel that in its grip on her hand, in the restraint of its guidance. It wears black, but the mask that covers its face is white. It looks back at her and smiles, and she shivers. “I watched your performance. It was… quite good.”

Somehow this means more than anything anyone else has told her. “Thank you,” she says breathlessly.

“There are improvements,” the Angel muses, guiding her down a set of stairs. The air blows chill and dank around her, and she curls toward its warmth. “That we could make. Which I intend to do. Singing while you walk, for one—air support. Come, now.”

“What shall I sing?”

“Something in a minor key—for practice. One of those songs your compatriots make up, perhaps?”

The only one Christine can think of is a silly song about the Phantom of the opera—who she doesn’t particularly believe in—but she obliges. Anything for the Angel. “In sleep he sang to me… in dreams, he came…”

Her voice echoes off the stone, intermingles with the ghostly sound of the organ, and the Angel leads her on, deeper and deeper. Perhaps it’s just the echo, but her voice sounds good—strong. The Angel grins, and copies her—a reversal of their game. It wants to learn her music too. “Sing once again with me our strange duet… Your power over them grows stronger yet…”

They trade off verses in this way, singing of the Phantom and its mysterious ways, and Christine recalls how the other girls had once told her that her Angel had to be the Phantom. Silly stuff, but she decides to make up a verse on it anyway—she feels light, happy. “Those who have seen your face draw back in fear…” she teases. “I am the mask you wear…” It’s true, isn’t it? She brings the Angel’s music to the world—or she will…

The Angel’s expression seems to sour for a moment—or perhaps it does not, it is hard to tell in the candle light and under the mask—and it finishes her verse forcefully. “It's me they hear…”

She feels its hand tighten on hers. “Your spirit,” she concedes.

“And your voice.”

“In one, combined—”

It shakes its head, and uses the usual end of the song’s chorus. “The Phantom of the Opera is there, inside your mind.”

After a while, they come to a boat at the edge of a cold, subterranean lake, and the Angel bids her get into it. “Now—while the echo is strong. I want to hear you sing, as loudly as you can.” 

They push off from the shore, and a thrill of nervousness rolls up Christine’s spine. This has always been her weak point—she can never sing as loudly as the Angel wants. She sits up straighter, gives a riff a shot. “Up a half step,” the Angel commands, poling them down a canal. “Sing.”

She repeats, obedient. “Again, louder—sing!”

She tries, oh, she tries. That lightheadedness is coming back. The Angel shakes its head. “Up again. Again—no, hold the note. The A. Four bars. Come on, scream it!”

She holds it, trying to make it sound pretty. She turns, and the Angel looks disappointed. It’s heartbreaking. “Sing,” it says warningly.

She doesn’t sing—she screams. In the catacombs, the sound is earsplitting. But the Angel’s mouth curves into a smile. And with that, her lungs and her energy exhausted, she faints.


	5. Pandora's Box

The Phantom is pleased—more pleased than she’s been in recent memory. Christine sleeps in her bed, clearly exhausted, but having achieved what the Phantom set out for her to do. There may be steps back—the Phantom knows this—but Christine has the capability, and that’s all that matters. She restrains the impulse to hum to herself, allowing Christine the opportunity to catch up on rest, and writes letters instead. “Dear Andre, What a charming gala—Christine was, in a word, sublime. We were hardly bereft when Carlotta left; on that note, the diva's a disaster. Must you cast her when she's seasons past her prime? -OG.” Opera Ghost. She seals the note with wax, sets it aside, and writes others. One for Firmin, one for Carlotta herself, one for that new patron—Raoul, Christine called him. “Do not fear for Miss Daaé—the angel of music has her under her wing. Make no attempt to see her again.” There—that should keep Christine focused on her music, and keep the irritating young man out of her opera house. She listened to his little visit to Christine’s dressing room last night, and immediately she took a disliking to him. Too eager, too transparent—a fool, like his managers.

The letters set and sent by way of a shortcut passage into the mail office, she returns, and sits at the organ, letting her fingers ghost over the keys. She won’t play—she’ll let Christine sleep—but she hardly needs to; she can imagine the chords with accuracy good enough to compose with. She pulls the cover down over the keys, takes up staff paper and a pen, and considers the piece before her. It’s a ballad, or so she hopes it becomes; for the past few days it’s felt more like a dirge. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, thinks hard. Christine’s performance last night—that was a ballad. What distinguished that piece from this one?

The soft sounds of stirring catch her ear, but she doesn’t turn—she’s almost got it. The dynamics—yes, too extreme—and the dominant seventh too discordant. She scratches it out, smiles, and turns to Christine, swallowing her surprise as she finds her right beside her on the piano bench.

“What’s that?” Christine asks. Her carefully-styled hair is flattened on one side, and it almost makes the Phantom laugh.

“A… work in progress,” she says carefully. “For you, likely.”

Christine leans over, curiosity on her face, and the Phantom draws back out of instinct. She wants to preserve the mystique of her character—incorporeal? phantasmal? angelic?—she tells herself. She ignores the fact that it might be nerves at the prospect of touching another person beyond the holding of hands.

Christine frowns at the sheets for a moment, clears her throat, tests out a few of the passages. “It’s very low for me,” she says, looking up at the Phantom with open uncertainty. The Phantom knows Christine is naive, unguarded, but she’s never seen it written so plainly, so close. “What are the lyrics to be?”

“A love song,” the Phantom answers. She coughs and clears the unaccountable hoarseness out of her throat. “And do not worry. I shall help you with it.”

“Of course.” Christine looks relieved. She replaces the music and smiles, leaning in towards her again. The Phantom channels her claustrophobia into gripping the edge of the piano bench, digging her nails into the moldering wood. Christine glances down for a moment, then back up, and her expression looks harder. More resolved. “Angel, may I… may I ask a few questions?”

The Phantom feels nervousness twist in her stomach again; she stands, and crosses to the mirror she keeps half-covered in her grotto. She sees Christine’s face pale behind her; she looks uncertain now. The Phantom looks uncertain to her own eyes, too—her fingers twisted into the pockets of her dressing gown. Was it a mistake to bring Christine down here, to bring her so close? She forces her voice steady. “I cannot promise that I will be able to answer.”

“Of course.” Christine frowns down at the ground, piled high with thieved rugs. “Angel, I know… I know my father sent you. Gustave Daaé. He told me he would, you see, when he died—and you told me so yourself, once.”

“Mmm.” The Phantom had nearly forgotten that bit of their first meeting—she’s glad Christine has reminded her.

“Well, I truly believe it—under your tutelage, I’ve done things I never would have thought possible.”

“Though I appreciate the flattery,” the Phantom says wryly, glancing back over her shoulder, “none of these statements are questions.” She secretly does appreciate the flattery—she, of course, knows she has done good work through Christine, but it is Christine who receives the praise. 

“Yes, of course.” Christine laughs a little. “I simply wondered—why, if you are an angel, do you live in such a… cold place?”

The Phantom thinks hard for a moment—Christine is testing around the edges of her story, cleverer than she’d thought she’d be. “Other angels live in cemeteries, do they not? It is our lot to help in whatever circumstances.”

“Hmm.” Christine frowns. “Can you… can you talk to my father? Does he… is he proud of me?”

She purses her lips. “It is… forbidden.” She turns from the mirror, paces over to one of the candelabras and relights the extinguished candles. “Perhaps we should practice—I assure you, there are many more who will be proud of us—you.”

“Just one or two more,” Christine insists, standing from the piano bench and trailing the Phantom down to the water’s edge. 

The Phantom walks a little quicker, lighting the candles on the other side. She eyes Christine’s cloak—she should take her back before this fiction gets out of hand. She circles back around to the organ. “One more,” she bargains, and turns to find Christine very close indeed. She swallows.

“I have… three,” Christine returns, hesitantly defiant. She holds up her fingers. “Two, at least.”

The Phantom draws herself up taller, irritation drowning any nervousness she may have felt before. Christine is more stubborn than she seemed before they met in person. She seizes Christine’s wrist and pulls her hand out of her face. “My patience wears thin. Ask your questions, and perhaps I will answer one. And then we will practice, or you will return to the world above.”

Christine glances at the Phantom’s hand on her wrist, then looks up and raises her chin. “Why do you restrict me so? Who—what is the phantom the others talk about so? And why do you wear a mask?”

The Phantom releases her wrist. “I do not restrict you! I ask you to do what needs to be done to become something great!” She tilts her head acidly, then turns away from Christine, back to the mirror. “You want to make your father proud, do you not? You want to be something great?”

“I do,” Christine mutters.

“Then question me no further. I know what is best for you.” She glares at Christine over her shoulder in the tarnished reflection. She frowns down at her music. And then she feels Christine’s hands on her face.

She jerks away, Christine already startling back with her mask in her hands, and claps a hand over her eyes. “What did I _just_ say?” she shrieks, heart racing and veins throbbing with adrenaline, angry, afraid. She’s exposed, exposed as a monster, a devil, a horror—and indeed Christine’s face looks horrified. “You—you—you traitorous, lying, untrusting _snake_!”

“I—I—” Christine stammers, falling to her knees and reaching out toward the hem of the Phantom’s dressing gown. “Believe me, Angel—I—I—I meant nothing by it! Please!” She looks afraid now, too—her big blue eyes welling with tears, her stage makeup blurred and running. “Please…”

The Phantom gets her breathing under control, and looks down at Christine. She’s… pitiful. “Stranger than you dreamt it, hmm?” The Phantom curls her lip. “You would have been better off trusting me.”

“I…” 

Christine’s tears are clearing now, her expression vague, and the Phantom snatches her mask back from her trembling hands. “What?” she snaps, turning away and replacing the mask. “Why do you think angels have to tell people ‘be not afraid’?”

“You… the Phantom… they say…” Christine’s gaze refocuses, and the Phantom feels a chill. It’s not blind adulation in her face now—now it’s… fear.

“Come,” she hisses, seizing Christine by the wrist once more and pulling her to her feet. She storms down to the water’s edge, grabs Christine’s cloak, and yanks it over her head. “You’re returning now. Those fools will be missing you, anyway.”


	6. Notes

Christine returns, stumbling out of a passage that seems to completely disappear behind her, to an absolute cacophony of arguments. Raoul against Carlotta, Andre and Firmin against Piangi, Madame Giry against absolutely all of them. They all go silent when she drifts onto the stage and squints against the bright light. God, it was dim down… below, with… She puts the thought together, again and again, like puzzle pieces she can’t quite believe fit together. The Angel is the Phantom. The Phantom is the Angel. The Phantom is her Angel. She starts trembling, which she only realizes she’s doing in reference to Raoul’s arms, suddenly tight around her. “What happened?” he demands, his eyes roving her face for signs of damage. “Where did you go?”

Christine isn’t sure she can answer; she’s almost relieved when Carlotta begins shouting. “Ah, and there he goes again—comforting his precious little ingenue! All about Christine, Christine, Christine!” The diva’s eyes are fiery, and Christine cringes. She hates it when people are angry with her—hates it more than anything. And now she’s made a very powerful person—being—thing? very angry with her, indeed.

She’s sitting, next time she tunes in. Andre and Firmin are talking Carlotta down in the background, and Raoul sits with her, her hand clasped in his. She jerks it away, the memory too close to what happened last night. “Christine,” he repeats, and his voice is gentle. “Where did you disappear to?”

“The… the Phantom took me,” she says quietly, and everyone else in the room goes silent. “To… her lair.”

“Her?” Andre and Firmin say as one, and splutter disbelievingly into their mustaches. 

Raoul looks at her pityingly. “Christine, I know you all have this myth of the Phantom… I know it must be easy to believe. But there is no Phantom of the Opera. He’s a product of coincidence.”

“Then who drops these set pieces on me?” Carlotta demands. “Who sends me these horrid notes?”

“Notes?” Christine glances around, noticing for the first time the pieces of white stationery grasped angrily in everyone’s hands. “What… did she say?”

“We are to cast you as the countess in the new production of _Il Muto_ , and to cast Carlotta as the pageboy,” Firmin grumbles, as Andre makes placating motions against Carlotta’s renewed outrage. “To pay him his salary, to leave Box Five open, et cetera, et cetera. Our dear Vicomte is to leave you alone, and if all of these ridiculous demands are not followed, he threatens disaster.”

Christine looks to Raoul, who indeed looks rather sour about the whole thing. “The work of a madman,” he assures her, rubbing his hand in small circles on her back. “I promise you, we won’t cave to him.”

“Her.” Christine takes a deep breath as she thinks, then looks back up. “So… I am not to be cast as the countess?”

There is an awkward pause; it seems like Andre and Firmin are wary of a second tantrum on their hands. “We will proceed as we meant to originally,” Raoul says carefully, and takes Christine’s hand again. “You’re exhausted anyway, Little Lottie. Surely you don’t want to take on so much in your state?”

Christine bites the inside of her cheek—she… she almost does. _Don’t you want to be something great?_ She’s slept after last night’s performance, and the terror that she felt before has subsided into the memory of a thrill. If she were to sing again, she… she thinks she might enjoy it. But the last time she was stubborn, she got burned. She folds her hands, and shakes her head no.

“Good girl.” Raoul squeezes her hand, gets to his feet. “Well, then. We go ahead as planned.” Christine sees Madame Giry’s face twitch at this, but the strange expression disappears before she can identify it.

She wonders what it means that she herself did not receive a note.

***

The Phantom paces the roof, back and forth and back again. This has always worked for her before—coming up here as the sun sets, walking up and down until whatever is worrying her seems to subside. Seeing Paris laid out below her in miniature is usually good for getting perspective.

This time, it’s not working—or at least it’s taking a little longer than usual. The Phantom is shaken after her failure of an encounter with Christine. She wasn’t ready; it was all too much, too quickly. She should have done it by degrees, or taken Christine back after she’d fainted. The spell of the evening is always broken in morning. She’s lost her pupil’s unquestioning trust, and with it her best creative outlet.

And Christine is so… much different than the Phantom had expected. She hasn’t met a lot of people in person—Madame Giry, and shopkeepers on the rare occasions she ventures out, and… others, before she became the Phantom. She doesn’t like to think about those people. She’s read a great many stories, and seen a great many operas, though, and she had almost expected Christine to be like that—a leading lady, a heroine, demure and kind and unquestioning. Heroines were never stubborn or nosy. Heroines never ripped peoples’ masks off if they wanted to keep those masks on.

What role does the Phantom fill? Is she living up to it?

It’s okay—she can salvage this. She’ll let the notes she sent stand—Christine may no longer blindly trust her, but she can hold the promise of more lessons over her. Christine will need those lessons, if she is to become great. And anyway, Christine fits better as the Countess than Carlotta ever could. The managers will leave Box Five empty. She’ll watch the show, and plan, and fix that damned ballad. It will work out. It will! It will.

The scuff of a shoe distracts her from her pacing, and she presses back into the growing shadows, edging around the dome of the opera house’s roof as a shadow creeps around the other side. “Aw, di’int mean to frighten ya, little girl.” The stage manager—Buquet, drunk as is frequently the case. He must think she’s one of the ballerinas; he’s always harassing them. “Come on out, don’t be shy. That’s a pretty little cloak you’ve got—the rest of the ensemble match?”

The Phantom rolls her eyes; she’s shocked the man knows the word ensemble. She slinks away, anger boiling in her stomach as his entreaties grow louder and lewder. “Come on out, you damned tease—show us what’s under those skirts.”

She forces her temper down, and ignores him as she ignores the possibility that her orders will not be obeyed. She slips down the trap door into the attic, and tucks herself back into one of the crawlspaces. Her time on the roof cut short, but she does feel a little bit better. After all, tonight she gets to watch an opera, with her choice of leading lady.


	7. Poor Fool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long update time - busy graduating and job-searching. Plan to keep working on it this weekend and maybe finish. Here we begin canon divergence ;)

Christine laces up breeches instead of skirts, a feeling of trepidation in her stomach. She’s had very little time to think about it all—about her debut as prima donna, about the Angel and the Phantom, about where she now stands. The opera house has been in a flurry trying to wrestle Carlotta back into her role, which seems just the slightest bit foolish to Christine. It’s not what the Angel wants, for one, and if Carlotta is unwilling, well, Christine… that’s one detail that has congealed for Christine. She wants to sing again, not be stuck in this silent role. But asking for that would require argument, and she doesn’t feel secure enough in her reasons yet. _To make my father proud? Because the Phantom wishes it so?_ She frowns, and shoves her feet into buckled shoes. No, those probably aren’t enough, and they don’t feel like the whole of it. But no matter. She’ll keep thinking about it, work through the worries and confusion, as soon as she has some breathing space. For now, time to work.

***

The Phantom sits, not in Box Five, but on the catwalk along the inside of the opera house’s dome, swinging her feet out over the chandelier and the abyss below. Because Box Five is not empty. Her jaw is clenched, and she runs a finger along the edge of her mask in a nervous gesture. She had not expected to have to make good on her threats; she had hoped the managers would be cowed as previous ones. No matter; she’s set one retribution in place for the slight of her seat being taken. If Christine is not allowed to sing, then… well, she will have to come up with something else.

The curtains draw back, the overture plays, and she enjoys herself as much as she can. The costuming is exquisite—Rococo and lushly adorned with bows and ribbons and gilding. She likes that, the drama. She’d choose something similar were she ever to direct a show. Her thoughts trail off and she looks at the stage narrowly as the scene begins—Christine or Carlotta?

Carlotta.

The Phantom nods to herself, cold with anger, and gets to her feet. Time for some mischief. Time for her to make good on more than just slipping something into Carlotta’s pre-show drink. But she stops, vacillating, before she walks away unseen. The managers may explain this away—as coincidence or the overactive imagination of the theater. She needs to leave her calling card, if she is to be believed as a genuine threat. A thrill of nervousness shoots through her stomach, and she grabs onto the railing to steady herself. This… this is something she has never done before.

“Did I not instruct,” she calls, and the dome amplifies her voice eerily. “That Box Five was to be kept empty?”

The actors’ heads on stage snap up, and the Phantom can see Christine’s face down below. It’s hard to read her expression from so far away, but the acoustics of the stage carry her words far beyond what she clearly intended. “It’s her,” she breathes.

“Your part is silent, little toad,” Carlotta snaps, and the Phantom laughs to herself. She knows what that tablet she put in Carlotta’s rosewater will do to her throat. The laugh echoes out, and Carlotta chokes back her words in a manner so _deeply_ gratifying to the Phantom.

She speaks up again, just for the sheer pleasure of it. Being the center of attention. “A toad, madame? We shall see, shall we not?” And the Phantom turns, emboldened, and sweeps away. Before one of the stagehands comes looking for her, before the illusion she is so enjoying falters. She slips through the attic, makes her way to the rigging above the stage—the last place they’d ever look, since they hadn’t seen her there before. And she waits, watches, and smiles, as Carlotta’s voice fails her and she croaks the note. _Perhaps it is you, madame, who is the toad._ The audience is rioting in laughter, Carlotta shrieking in terror, the curtain being called in, and perhaps that will be enough. They will believe it to be magic, they will stop the show and lose face, they will never dare to stand up to her again. 

The managers run onto the stage behind the curtain to comfort a sobbing Carlotta, and the vicomte runs to Christine. The Phantom frowns—that, she hadn’t expected or wanted. “Are you alright, my dear?”

“Yes,” comes Christine’s reply, sounding dazed. Christine has sounded dazed for about two days, now, and the Phantom is irritably beginning to wonder if the girl is stupid as well as naive and stubborn.

Carlotta gapes like a fish, meanwhile, and the managers turn helplessly, choicelessly, to Christine. “Well,” says Firmin, and then again. “Well. Go on, put her in the costume. If Carlotta is mute for… for now, we shall swap.” He aims a dirty look around the rafters, and the Phantom pulls her feet back just in time. “Andre?”

Andre nods, and pokes his head out from the curtain, looking immensely nervous, and immediately stumbles over what he meant to say. “For now, enjoy the ballet from Act Three of tonight’s opera?” 

He pulls back, and Firmin looks indignant. “What did you do that for?”

“I don’t know! They’re all expecting a show, Firmin! Think of the money we’d lose! Come on, on with the show, right? At any cost—”

The Phantom curls her lip. Any cost, hmm? The prima donna’s voice lost not enough? She gets to her feet on the catwalk and paces one way, then swings around and goes the other way, glaring with all her power at the figures below on the stage as they prepare for the ballet. Christine is whisked away, and the vicomte strolls back to his box, unconcerned. Box Five. The Phantom has been forgotten, she realizes—her interruption practically a part of the show. A nuisance, but nothing more. She sees red, and she paces ever more angrily, plucking at the ropes in the rafters as she goes. She’ll show them—she’ll drop something else on them. Like Carlotta. Show them all.

She’s forced back into the shadows as the stagehands return, hurriedly preparing for the ballet scene. “Idiotic,” one of them mutters. “Going on, when there’s an angry ghost. And now we’re all out of order on the cues—”

“Stuff it, Marchand,” Buquet returns, leaning lazily over the railing of the catwalk as his underlings fly in set pieces. “The Phantom doesn’t scare me, and it shouldn’t scare you, unless you’re a pussy. And anyway, the ballet’s the best part.” He waggles his eyebrows and leers down at the ballerinas. “Get to see all the goods from above.” 

The Phantom glances down and curls her lip; she’s almost certain he’s not talking about the bodices of the ballet costumes, but rather what’s inside them. Such an awful man. The ballerinas—Madame’s daughter Meg, Christine, all of them—would be better off without him. And like that, it comes to her. Neat. Tidy. Two birds with one stone, a perfect duet.

The stagehands scurry off, and the ballerinas begin to dance, Buquet hidden behind the proscenium as the curtains pull back. Alone, unsuspecting. There’s a loose rope thrown over the rafter, weighted—a perfect solution. The first monster she killed with a scrap of rope—why not again? She cuts it loose, prepares a loop. He’s broader than her; she’s not sure if he’ll be able to fight her off or not. She chances it. A jump from the catwalk she’s on to where he is—she comes down a few feet away in a flurry of cloaks, and for a moment he looks confused. She’s as tall as him—good. He sees the rope in her hand, and he must comprehend. He’s been telling those stories all those years, hasn’t he? To scare girls into bed with him? The magical lasso? She bares her teeth. “The Phantom should scare you, monsieur.”

Buquet runs.

The Phantom did not expect this, but she collects herself quickly enough—chases after him, follows him up a ladder, and cuts him off. She’s quicker than he is, his reflexes dulled by alcohol, and it is nothing to get the rope around his neck. Nothing to pull. Nothing to rid her opera house of a disgusting disgrace of a human being.

She loops the weight around the railing of the catwalk and shoves the body over the edge, the violins and crowd shrieking as one as it jolts into view. There. There. Now, now the managers will listen! She curls her lips back in a grimace—a smile?—something, as she watches pandemonium erupt in the opera house before her. They will heed her notes now. _Now_ , she will have their attention—everyone’s attention. And Christine—

She sees Christine now, below, her eyes wide and staring at the body hanging above the stage. She’s partway into costume, having rushed in at the commotion, and as she gazes at the body, someone practically barrels into her. The vicomte. “Christine, Christine, are you alright?”

She turns, slowly, and her eyes find his. “Raoul,” she whispers, and the Phantom can hear it, even through the screaming and the managers’ baying below. “Raoul, I’m frightened. Raoul, we—we need to—Raoul, we need to go!” And in a flourish of skirts, the Phantom watches Christine turn heel and run. Her hand is locked around Raoul’s wrist.

Now the Phantom is frightened too.

***

Christine runs for the roof; she can think of no better place to go. Raoul protests as she drags him along to safety, or some semblance of it. She can’t think! She’s overwhelmed by horror and fear and confusion, and she needs space, or she shall be of no use to anyone. So she runs for the night air, up on top of the Opera Populaire, and takes Raoul with her. He cannot be safe if Buquet was not. Buquet insisted he knew things about the Phantom. And Raoul knows nothing, believes nothing.

Even now, he’s contradicting her. “Christine, the Phantom is a fable! I know you must believe in it, growing up here, but believe me! There is no phantom of the opera!”

She ignores him. She’s _taking_ time to work things out now, if they won’t give it to her. “Raoul, I’ve been there,” she insists, pacing back and forth, the lights of Paris that used to captivate her so as a child barely registering. “I met her. I met her once, as a child—when my father had only just died. I thought she was an angel. And she taught me to sing—that’s true enough.” Raoul says something in the background, seated on the edge of the dome and gesticulating, but she ignores it. “Why? Why did she teach me? Who is this woman?”

“She’s mad,” Raoul puts in.

“She’s not,” Christine rejects. She’s not completely sure the Phantom is even human yet. “She… she knows all there is to know about music. I used to sing the things she played, on that organ, on that lake…”

“What lake?”

“And she told me she could help me sing them better. And we worked together—for years and years! I let her—I wanted her help!” Why had she wanted that help? She was a ballerina, a chorus girl. Why had she wanted more? To make her father proud? To make the Phantom happy?

“She’s a criminal, whoever she is,” Raoul insists. And that’s true too—Christine has heard every bit of the stories. She never believed them to be connected to her Angel of Music, but now… now she knows. Now she’s seen…

“Why do angels have to tell people ‘be not afraid’?” she murmurs to herself, remembering the fear and rage and revulsion on the Phantom’s unmasked face. Contradictory—the Phantom, with the whole opera house under her thumb, and yet scared of Christine. Contradictory, the kindness—strict, but still, kindness—the Phantom has shown in teaching her, and yet the anger with which she handles everyone else. Contradictory, the mystery and magic and the insistence that it must be a ghost, and yet… Christine held her hand. Christine removed her mask, and touched her face in the process. Warm flesh and bone. Who is this woman, to be the Angel and the Phantom at once? And what, exactly, does she want with Christine?

 _Christine, Christine_. She almost hears the echo of her name. Two parts, a duet. And then she snaps back to reality, and the only part, Raoul’s voice. “Christine,” he repeats, and stands, holding her by her upper arms. “You needn’t be frightened. I promise you. I can see you thinking—you always think too much.” He laughs a little. “Please. This… this situation, it won’t last. I’ll take care of it, alright?”

She searches his face, turning those thoughts to him. Whatever protection she has from the Phantom, she’s sure it doesn’t extend to him. She heard what was in that note. _Make no attempt to see her again_. They’re seeing each other now, her eyes roving over that kind face she remembers from her childhood. Yes, the Phantom warned him against seeing her again—but she said nothing about Christine seeing him. She sets her jaw stubbornly. The Phantom may be a mystery all she likes, contradict herself, refuse to answer Christine’s questions. “You’ll take care of it?” she challenges, demanding an answer from someone.

“Yes,” he promises, and smooths a curl of hair back from her face. “I’ll take care of it. Of you.”

A smile quirks Christine’s lips—she’s pretty sure that when it comes to the Phantom, she doesn’t need to be taken care of. Somehow, she has something the woman wants, and maybe she can barter it for Raoul’s safety. Maybe she can be a player in this game too.

“That’s all I ask of you,” she says, simply, and smiles back at him. No, she doesn’t understand everything yet, but she will. And when Raoul leans in to kiss her, she lets him. It’s nice, familiar. It’s a balm after the panic and confusion of the day. And, in some way, it’s a bit of a rebellion. A shot across the Phantom’s bow. _I will learn what you want from me. And I’ll do it on my terms._

***

The shot misses, and catches the Phantom right in the gut.


	8. The Angel of Music

_Two Months Later_

It is the night of the New Year’s Masquerade at the Opera Populaire, and Christine is, perhaps uncharitably, bored. Frustrated? She struggles to tell with these things, especially when by any other account she should be glowing with happiness. The opera house has been quiet, and the ballerinas less harangued now that Marchand is stage manager. She is engaged, she has come to occasionally understudy for Carlotta, she has had nothing to fear for two months. The bump in her pay, which was desperately meager to start, allowed her a moment of excitement—a trip out to the tailor’s with no one the wiser, and spending of her own money on a costume for the ball. The theme is black and white, and she thinks it’s rather clever—dark on the left, light on the right, with trims in the contrasting colors. She’s powdered her hair white on one side, bought a harlequin mask, and found red lipstick to set the whole thing off. The effect is lovely in her opinion, which Raoul agrees with, and promptly ruins her hard work kissing her. She giggles and tries to wriggle out from under him. “Not my lipstick! Meg lent it to me, I can’t use it all up!”

“I shall get my kicks in now, then, and leave you alone at the party,” he promises, and kisses her again. “Are you excited?”

“Oh… yes, I am,” she says, trying to convince herself of it. “It’ll be fun to see everyone dressed up. Not to mention masked—I’m sure someone will do something absolutely mad and pretend it wasn’t them in the morning.”

Raoul laughs. “My money’s on Andre for that.”

“Oh, no, Firmin,” she argues. “He’s so uptight—he’ll have to cut loose.”

“Whatever you say, Little Lottie,” he teases. He kisses her cheek once more, and leaves her to put on his own costume. Christine feels better for a moment, but the frustration returns quickly, and she drums her nails on the counter. Someone doing something mad at the party…

***

She truly enjoys herself once she arrives. The champagne flows like water, the younger ballerinas are dancing with stagehands very prettily, and the mystery of the masks is a little thrill. She runs into a feathered mask that turns out to be hiding Meg, giddy with glee, and Madame Giry glides behind in plain black velvet. She and Raoul pick Andre and Firmin out with little difficulty—they are the loudest voices in the room—and steer clear of Carlotta and Piangi in their exotic turbans and robes. “Well,” Raoul smiles, and sets down his drink. “May I have this dance, mademoiselle?” He bows deeply and extends a hand.

“You certainly may, monsieur.” She grins as he whisks her into step, and resolves to dance her very best. But the conversation around tugs at her attention, and she finds herself moving on instinct.

“Oh, she’s so lucky—the vicomte, all that money—”

“Look at that diamond, too! He must really love her…”

“They’re a handsome couple—”

A twinge of guilt tugs at her stomach, and she refocuses on Raoul. Raoul, who she does love. Who is true, and kind, and honest. Who she is enjoying dancing with. She gives him a smile, moves to take the next step, and stumbles—the music cutting out from under her in a discordant rasp, and Raoul no longer moving. He’s looking up the stairs, as is everyone else. Toward the solitary figure in blood red.

The heels are high, adding to her already impressive height, and tap against the marble alongside a half-cape that spills from her shoulder, held in place by a silver pin in the shape of a skull. Christine notices that—the excruciatingly well-tailored waistcoat and breeches, the drama of the frock coat, the imposing skeletal cast of the Phantom’s mask—before she notices the rapier at her waist, or the folio in her hand. The Phantom smiles, lifts her chin to the crowd assembled unwittingly before her, and throws her arms open wide. “Why so silent, good monsieurs? Did you think that I had left you for good? Oh, you must have missed me—we are celebrating my great achievement, are we not?”

No one answers, and the Phantom pouts. “Well, we should be, you know. An opera commissioned perfectly to your actors’ abilities, by an artist who is, by her own admission, rather good at her work?” She waits again in silence, then shrugs, her cape swishing, and crosses to Andre and Firmin, clutching at each other in surprise. She holds out the folio in an exaggerated bow, then drops it to the stairs and straightens. “Well. Perhaps you all forget me—it has been a while since I have seen your dear faces. In any case you’re welcome, monsieurs, though I must ask you to remember your place. An office, not the arts.” The managers are too shocked to say anything, though Christine can see a vein throbbing in Firmin’s temple. She, too, is frozen—a thrill of fear in her stomach that only increases as the Phantom draws the sword and spins it contemplatively. Is that fear? Why can’t she identify her own feelings properly?

“Just a few notes before rehearsal starts tomorrow,” the Phantom says lightly, tapping the flat of the sword against her gloved palm. “Señora, I have given you a bigger role than you deserve—you must measure up to it, or I shall be most displeased.” All Carlotta’s bravado is gone, the diva perhaps remembering what happened last time she went against the Phantom’s wishes. She trembles as the Phantom gazes down at her, and curls her lip as the Phantom passes on. “Mademoiselle Giry—the time signatures will be unusual for your dancers. Please prepare accordingly.” The Phantom keeps walking as Meg drops a nervous curtsey, her eyes lingering over Madame Giry for just a moment before snapping to Raoul. “Box Five. Is to be kept. _Empty_. For. My. Use.” There’s a tense line in Raoul’s jaw, like he might haul off and punch the Phantom were she not armed. She taps the tip of the sword against the marble steps as if to illustrate that point, and then comes to a halt just before Christine. “And as for our star, Miss Christine Daaé—” Christine swallows hard.

The Phantom tilts her head, the razor line of her jaw cutting disdainfully into Christine’s throat. There is irony in her every movement. “No doubt she’ll do her best—it’s true her voice is good. She knows, though, should she wish to excel, she has much still to learn—if pride will let her return to me, her teacher.” She takes a look around the room, then returns to Christine’s face. She smirks. “Her teacher.”

Christine’s breath catches with what feels like anger and sets her cheeks blushing hard. What, is the Phantom here to humiliate her? To take credit for her? To take possession of her? She understands Raoul’s impulse to fight, now, but stands straight as she can against the taller woman. The Phantom withdraws an envelope—familiar, that same seal on the notes from so many months ago—and holds it out to Christine. “Your part, Mademoiselle.”

Christine extends her hand just as carefully, takes the envelope in such a way that it flashes her engagement ring as visibly as possible, and folds it away behind her back. “Thank you, Maestro,” she spits, and glares at the floor. “I won’t let you down.”

She feels a gloved finger and thumb on her chin, and looks up, livid, to find the Phantom inspecting her face, the smallest quirk of a smile on her black-lipsticked mouth. Christine feels her face flush again, and hopes the mask is hiding it. “I know you won’t,” she says sweetly, so close that Christine can see the edges of disfigured flesh peeking out from her mask around her eyes. Eyes of a strange dun color, very nearly pale gold in the candlelight. She holds that gaze as long as she can, before the force of it makes her skin start to crawl and she has to look away. The Phantom chuckles, very softly. “Listen to me this time, Angel,” she whispers, and then turns out to the rest of the audience. “I advise you to comply; my instructions should be clear. Remember—there are worse things than, well…” She shrugs expressively, and somehow that’s what breaks the spell.

Firmin raises a shaking finger and shouts, “Murderess!” And Raoul steps away from Christine, reaches into the jacket of his costume, and pulls out something that seems to stun the Phantom and Christine both—a pistol. A shout escapes Christine’s lips before she can recall it, and Raoul’s focus wavers for a moment. That’s all the Phantom needs. She jumps back up the steps to the landing, unpins her cloak, and in a swirl of red, she disappears. Christine finds her feet moving, disbelieving. Flesh and blood—that woman is flesh and blood, she knows it, where did she go? Nothing remains but the cloak and the pin, the skull grinning at her. _I’ll never tell_ , it cackles. 

She’s lost in the crowd as people panic, as Raoul goes tearing after Madame Giry and the managers stoop fearfully to recover the manuscript. “ _Doña Juanita_ ,” Andre scoffs, disdainful, and looks around. But Christine is already moving, her note tucked in the cloak, the pin clutched in her hand. The Phantom has made her move, and it is an aggressive one. Now, she makes the next.

***

Christine arises so early next morning that the Phantom nearly misses her departure. Her anguish has settled into a betrayed sort of disdain over the past months, and she hasn’t been keeping an eye on Christine, has been studiously avoiding catching sight of any of the courtship that’s been happening. It’s stomach-turning—Christine, with so much talent, stooping to the idiot vicomte. The Phantom had to practice before the mirror for weeks to keep her voice steady and her expressions modulated through her speech, to prepare to deal with that. But it’s done, with only the minor hiccup of the _idiot_ vicomte trying to shoot her then and there. Too much moving about in the open—she won’t make that mistake again, not without insurance. Nor will she focus too much on Christine—just a part in her opera, just talent to be molded. Her stubbornness will falter, as it must, and the Phantom will have her back as a student. As it should be.

When Christine arises, she goes to the opera’s carriage, and it’s only careful eavesdropping that obtains for the Phantom her destination. Interesting—the grave is a place she goes on occasion, but not without provocation. The Phantom has never followed her there. She hails a cab with the hood of her cloak raised, and follows her there. It’s bone-chillingly cold, a January morning, and as the Phantom seeks the mausoleum of Gustave Daaé, she can see Christine taking a more circuitous, contemplative route. Thinking—Christine thinks very carefully, she has learned. She wonders what she’s thinking about.

***

Christine has read the score of _Doña Juanita_ , and it does not fit into the move she expected the Phantom to make. The plot is horrid, and horribly risque—the sort of thing that, if the Phantom knows her at all, knows Christine has very little about. Even reading it made her blush. But no matter; she’s had to romance Carlotta as the pageboy; the role of the shepherdess at least wears skirts. No, what concerns Christine is the absolute equality of the roles. She demanded the rest of the parts from the managers last night, and compared hers’ and Carlotta’s. They’re equally good. No placing Christine under Carlotta as punishment, no elevating Christine as the Phantom has done before. She’d’ve understood the former, but this rankles even more. She _knows_ she can sing better than Carlotta—or has the potential to do so, if she even decides to deign and speak with the Phantom. It’s bad writing—she’ll outshine Carlotta. The opera will seem imbalanced. It makes no sense and Christine knows the Phantom knows that. Unless it’s an even more subtle insult—telling her she’s only as good as Carlotta. And that sets her cheeks blazing in the frigid air as she heads for the carriage, uncertain of where she’s going. She wants to be better than Carlotta. She thinks it’s for her father. She tells the driver to go to Père Lachaise before she notices she’s doing it. Well. Perhaps she’ll ask him.

The cemetery is empty this early, and she strolls among the other graves slowly, not quite ready to head to the mausoleum yet. Her father died when she was very young, but she remembers him still—his kindly voice, the calloused tips of his fingers, the beauty of his music. She never had much skill with an instrument, but he never minded—let her try, then run off and play with Raoul when she got bored. “You’ll find something you love someday, my dear,” he said once, when she had broken one of his strings and cried in frustration. “It doesn’t have to be violin. I just want you to be happy, and find the thing that lights your heart up. It could be music—it could be dancing—it could be a friendship, or a great love.” He had spun his wedding ring thoughtfully, as he often did when he thought of Christine’s mother. “But don’t cry over it, dear. Don’t cry.”

Hmm. Well, she’s crying a little. Her father would know why she wants more, why she’s so bored. He was wise. But now it’s just her and marble angels, alone in the cemetery with her thoughts. “I wish… I wish somehow, you were here again,” she tells the air, and her breath fogs. “I… want someone to tell me what I want. I cannot find it on my own.”

***

The Phantom considers speaking up, then bites her tongue. No. In all honesty, she feels uncomfortable being here. She’s suddenly, painfully aware of the fact that Christine has a life beyond her. 

Does the Phantom have that?

***

Christine’s feet have carried her to the mausoleum door, and she gazes quietly at the name inscribed above the door. There are desiccated roses on the step; even in death, the memory of Gustave’s music touches strangers. She swallows hard at the idea of that, at the idea that he could reach beyond the grave for them, but not her. The Angel of Music is a hoax, and she is alone. Not one soul else, not Raoul or Meg or Madame Giry know of this.

“Did you know they loved you?” she asks, gesturing to the roses. “Did you know you would live on?” She scoffs at herself, shutting her eyes against the tears—that’s probably what he meant by the Angel of Music. People are mortal, but truly great art…

***

The Phantom presses her back to the exterior wall of the mausoleum, hiding behind it, the cold scraping her throat raw. People still love this man for his art, for the beauty he created. Christine said so herself. What is the Phantom making art for? She taught herself her music, she gave what she had to Christine, she poured all her hurt into _Doña Juanita_. The wind bites at her cheeks, the tears she finds there burning with cold. What is it all for? When the last bar sounds, what does she want from the audience?

***

Truly great art could be powerful. Truly great art could touch the lives of strangers, could pull roses to the grave of a man fifteen years dead. Truly great art could instill happiness. Christine’s eyes snap open, and she stares up at the mausoleum as if it had spoken to her. “Find the thing that lights your heart up,” her father had said. And that was it, wasn’t it? Her own art, standing before the crowd, singing. It made audiences happy. It made Raoul happy. It had made the Phantom—the Phantom of the Opera!—happy! And, a feeling that for once she can solidly, positively identify—it makes her happy. It’s the thing that lights her heart. She doesn’t do it for her father, or for the Phantom. Christine sings for her own joy, and for the joy she feels in reaching out to others. Making those she loves happy makes her happy, and that’s how she confuses the two. But that’s it—she’s bored because she can do better, and she’s frustrated because she _deserves_ better, and waiting for others to tell her what she wants is slowly, methodically poisoning her. Ambition, bitten back and suppressed, surges in her chest, and she gasps a bit, disbelieving. How in the world did she not see it? “Father, I… I get it,” she says, and wipes her eyes. “I see now. I’ve… I’ve got to work at it, haven’t I?” She laughs to herself. “I have to tell myself what to do. I have to want things for myself. I have to be selfish!” Thoughts occur to her, and she takes the time to herself that she needs to process them, pacing. “Well. I’ve got to go tell her that I can do better, haven’t I? Send notes of my own, push back.” The issues around the Phantom—what she wants from Christine, what she’ll do to get it—haven’t resolved, but she feels confident now, in a way she’s never felt. “I may sing for the Phantom of the Opera, but she writes for me, doesn’t she?”

The mausoleum doesn’t respond, but Christine doesn’t even mind—her father is a kind and distant memory, and she doesn’t have to owe him. If she does as she likes, she honors him. He sent her the Angel of Music after all—the memory of his music, the inspiration to find her own. Hell, she can be her own Angel of Music!

She runs back to the cemetery gates, orders the driver back to the opera house. Raoul catches her on her way into the dormitories, panicked and disheveled. “Where did you go?” he demands, looking afraid. “Christine, you can’t be wandering around, not with that madwoman on the loose!”

She frowns. “I just went to the cemetery,” she tells him, and laughs. He still doesn’t get that she lives in the eye of the Phantom’s storm. “I’m fine—really. I’m a grown woman.”

He looks even more upset by that. “You shouldn’t be dwelling on death either. You make it easy for her to get to you, to twist your mind.”

“I’m… fine,” she insists, surprised with how little he seems to be listening to her. She was going to have him help her write the letter to the Phantom, but now… now it seems less advisable. She’s not sure he understands the situation at all beyond violence and bravado.

He ushers her to her dressing room, and departs to speak with the managers—some sort of plan they have to lure the Phantom in and capture her. She’s not so sure it will work, but it gives her the opportunity to sing—and looking over the parts again on her dressing room table, she finds she’s _interested_ in them. She casts about in her drawers, locates ink and paper, and begins to write. _Dearest Phantom - I think that the shepherdess’s parts could be made just a hair more_ difficult…

***

A response is long in coming. The recipient is preoccupied with the matter of realizations, fresh roses for a man fifteen years dead, and edits. _Dear Miss Daaé - I shall consider this. In the meantime, please familiarize yourself with these new lyrics, and for god’s sake, tell Madame Giry to block Carlotta and yourself closer together._


	9. All I Ask

The Phantom cannot stop her hands from shaking. She tries glove after glove, looking for the pair with the magic ability to make them calm themselves, but nothing will do it. She scoffs in disgust before the mirror in her lair, and pulls on her usual ones. Whatever. It’s the opening night of her opera; of course she’s nervous. A voice in the back of her head insists it’s more than that, that it has more to do with—

She shushes that voice, and goes about her preparations.

*** 

Upstairs, preparations of a different sort are underway. Raoul rushes about all morning with the police constable, searching for exits and passageways that might afford the Phantom any sort of escape. Christine ignores it; she’s busy with fittings. Carlotta is complaining on the stool next to her, lamenting the hood she is to wear and the atonality of the music. The latter is a valid complaint; the songs are difficult, the intervals unusual to the ear, and remind Christine not a little of some of the eerie music she used to hear from beneath the stage. She’s working on the Phantom’s final edits even now—a B to a B flat, for no seeming reason, but she sings it over again. The story has been altered, ever so slightly—a cruel, callous piece about people taking advantage of one another to something perhaps… nearly romantic. Still a bit cold and cruel, but the ending doesn’t make her quite so sad. There’s a bit more kindness to the Doña’s advances, a bit more cleverness in the shepherdess’s response. And the Doña lives in the end, which should serve to make Carlotta happy. It does not. “It’s too low, too low all the time!” she whines from within the folds of the hoods, and sings it mockingly an octave higher. The Phantom has not responded to requests for octave changes in the Doña’s part.

The costume has remained the same, and for that she is secretly grateful, for it is a lovely thing. A short bustled skirt with an incredibly entertaining amount of petticoats, and beautiful embroidery demanded in harsh red ink. It’s designed with strokes of genius just as she can tell the music is composed—the Phantom, it seems, has an eye and an ear finely attuned to their theater. Dancing in it is effortless, but she puts in effort anyway, pushing her body to wider arcs and marking her blocking with pinpoint accuracy. The Phantom has given her a chance, for reasons she still doesn’t understand, and while Raoul plays soldier she’ll take that chance. She pushes her voice for that depth and strength the Phantom told her she needed, but she never hears a sound in response. No matter. The Phantom will come to the premiere of her own opera, and perhaps she’ll get answers then. Until then, it’s on her as one of the leading ladies to make a name for herself and for the show.

The sun goes down, and Christine’s costumes are finally delivered to her dressing room. “Hair and makeup in fifteen,” the seamstress informs her, and she nods, turning to dress herself. The costumes are on her table, alongside the pin and cloak she took from the Phantom. She considers them for a moment. It would probably annoy the Phantom to have her careful costuming interrupted by a token of—what, gratitude? Gratitude, she confirms, and considers, then pins it to one of the garters of her stockings. Out of sight, but still there. If breaking a leg is good luck in the theater, then a token from the Phantom of the Opera must be absolutely divine.

***

The violins buzz into the overture, a jarring discordant piece, and Christine can almost feel the audience squirming in their seats. The police presence around the aisles probably isn’t helping either, and Raoul’s adamant decision to sit in Box Five has her nervous herself. He checked in on her earlier, to make sure she was still comfortable doing this—”being,” in his words, “a sort of… bait.”

She hadn’t liked that—she hoped her impression of the Phantom’s motivations was more realistic. “It’s fine,” she told him, but he hadn’t seemed to believe her. She purses her lips backstage, stretches her limbs. It’s fine. She’ll deal with that situation later.

Now, the curtain rises, and Carlotta does her opening scene with no sign of her earlier complaint. That is one thing the diva has going for her—she’s a professional. She exits through the back curtains, and Christine takes a few deep breaths, says a quick prayer, and then plunges on.

The crowd is anxious, she can tell immediately. It’s not what they’re used to seeing out of an opera. But her part is a little closer to it, and maybe if she just… She sings sweetly, calmingly, and she feels the crowd calm with her. “No thoughts within her head but thoughts of love.” She’s got their attention, their allegiance now; they settle in, and she smiles. 

Carlotta returns for the next scene through that back exit, skulking in a villainish sort of way, and Christine crosses and uncrosses her legs, seemingly unaware, at the table. This song is her favorite, though its equal treatment still irks her. Carlotta has invariably been taking those opening notes up the octave, and Christine is sure that wherever the Phantom is, she’ll be very annoyed to see her work altered in any way. She glances up to Box Five, sees Raoul watching self-assuredly, and takes a deep breath as Carlotta begins the song. “Passarino, go away for the trap is set and waits for its prey…”

The correct octave. Christine is surprised—the diva’s chest voice is decent. She turns her head innocently, bats her eyelashes at the hooded figure that makes its way around the table to her. “You have come here, in pursuit of your deepest urge; in pursuit of that wish which till now has been silent. Silent.” The figure raises its finger to her lips, and suddenly, Christine is struck by realization. That’s not the blocking she and Carlotta do. And Christine has felt that hand on her face before.

She keeps her face impassive, recognizing now the inflections in voice that mark a mezzo and not a soprano. That part was not written for Carlotta. That part was written for a deeper voice, and was not altered for a very specific reason. She swallows, wondering where exactly Carlotta is, but she doesn’t have time to worry for long—they’re on stage. She has the audience—she cannot let them go now. She tosses her hair out of her face, resumes her smile, and eats from the feast as the Doña tries to tempt her away. It’s the chorus that is supposed to catch her character’s attention, and indeed it captures hers as well—the Phantom sings in a husky whisper, the character’s want clear on her breath, and Christine shivers. She believes she could upstage Carlotta, but this—the duet with the Phantom is balanced exactly as it should be. “Past the point of no return.”

She trills her verse, the shepherdess and herself both nervous, and forces herself into that close blocking the Phantom herself requested. Is it to prevent the police from having a clear shot? “You have brought me to that moment where words run dry,” she sings, and means it. Now she really doesn’t understand what the Phantom’s motive is, and for a moment her old uncertainty returns. But no. Her purpose in life is to do this, to sing and act and command the crowd, and she can hold her own on the stage. “In my mind I've already imagined our bodies entwining, defenseless and silent.” She turns away from the Phantom, coquettish, and then turns back, tracing a hand along her thigh. The Phantom as the Doña reciprocates, testing at the hem of her skirt, and she jerks herself away, indignant and playful. The Phantom makes that tilt of her chin, devastatingly eloquent even under the hood, and Christine bites her tongue for fear of gasping. No one else seems to have noticed it’s not Carlotta, and no one seems to have noticed how much better the scene has become.

“Past the point of no return,” she affirms, and carefully creeps back to the Phantom, seated at the table. The Phantom makes a move for her and she trips back, the game a tease between pursuer and prey. It’s perhaps a touch too real to the situation, but Christine can’t think about that now—it’s all breath, movement, tone, acting. “Past all thought of right or wrong—” The shepherdess is convinced, and with caution, she moves forward, seating herself beside the Phantom and allowing her to take her hand. She moves the hand slowly, over her stomach up to her collarbones, and the Phantom seems to know her own blocking well enough, for she trails that hand out along Christine’s bare shoulder and raises her hand to her lips. Christine shivers—Carlotta was always quite a bit more perfunctory. She rises to her feet, allows the Phantom to twirl her through a few steps, and then departs from her, casting longing glances across the stage as the two of them mount the stairs to the set’s catwalk. The Phantom ascends with measured precision, and Christine matches it step for step, absorbed body and mind with the scene and her partner in it. They face each other down the catwalk, and for a moment, Christine catches glimpses of faces—of Madame Giry, looking pale and tight-lipped below, of Raoul, his face a mask of horror. She’s not sure what that’s about. But the Phantom stomps her boot and Christine’s attention is returned, matching the smirk on her partner’s face and slowly, oh so slowly making her way forward. 

The Phantom hangs back, then seems to lose patience and catches her hard, a hand on her collarbone and the other at her hip, and Christine truly does gasp—to her relief, it’s an instrumental break. She feels the Phantom’s breath on her neck behind her, and leans into the touch, interlacing her fingers with hers and, in a touch of inspiration, making a show of taking her gloves off. The Phantom offers no resistance, and Christine replaces her hands at their previous locations, the Phantom’s fingers cold splayed against the hollow of her throat. They’re hands that have strangled, but somehow, that doesn’t seem relevant. She lives in the eye of the storm, after all.

She’s recovered her breath enough to sing the final chorus, leaning in against the Phantom and shutting her eyes as the Phantom pulls that hand down from her hip and towards the hem of her skirt, her chin on Christine’s shoulder. Christine nuzzles into the touch, her cheek pressed to the Phantom’s through the hood, though the acoustics of it are undoubtedly bad. Her pulse is throbbing in her ears and she can’t help but jog her knee into the Phantom’s grasp, letting herself be dipped low and practically dangled forty feet above the stage. The Phantom’s arms feel strong—she’s not concerned. The hood nods down for a moment, the Phantom’s grasp tightening where she’s holding Christine, and Christine glances down—she’s seen the pin. She swallows—that might have a different implication in this moment. In fact, as the final words pass her lips and she sings one last time that they’ve passed the point of no return, she finds herself extremely aware of what she’s said, and the danger she could be in. Her breath catches in her throat, and she gazes into the expressionless abyss within the hood. 

And then, to her surprise, the Phantom sings. Not very loud at all, and nothing from the show. No, it’s… she recognizes it in surprise as the ballad the Phantom was writing the night they met in the catacombs. It’s quiet, and it seems to be just for her. “Say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime… Lead me, save me from my solitude…” Her eyes are adjusting, and she can see the pinpricks of the Phantom’s eyes within the dark, her lip quivering. “Say you want me with you here beside you. Anywhere you go, let me go too. Christine, that's all I ask of…”

Her voice trails off, shaky, and Christine’s breath returns to her, shuddering. “You,” she says, finishing the Phantom’s line. The Phantom bites her lip.

Christine thinks this through uncharacteristically fast. She’s in a tight spot, physically, and if she were to displease the Phantom right now, it could be the death of her quite quickly. Or at least that’s what logic tells her. But… she feels safe, safer than she could have believed she could have felt, because she knows what it is the Phantom wants from her. It’s… just her. The Phantom… wants her. In the show, and out of it.

It’s mad, it’s truly mad, and she could scarcely believe it if it hadn’t just been sung to her. Christine is engaged, she’s—there’s a thousand reasons—and yet all she can feel now is the Phantom’s hands in all the places they’ve touched, burning and blushing. Raoul, for all his kisses and trueness, has never… never made her shiver like that, never made her breath catch in her throat.

She wonders what the Phantom’s kisses would be like.

Her fingers tighten on the arms of a flesh-and-blood woman, a woman who Christine is beginning to understand, a woman so painfully lonely and wanting for love that it makes her stomach ache. A murderer, a creative genius, a threat, a contradiction… she’s reached out to Christine, cried for help, prayed to her like some mischosen angel, and Christine has got to answer. What would make Christine happy? What would make the Phantom happy?

She reaches up to find the Phantom’s face within the folds of the hood, and the Phantom jerks back, perhaps afraid of what happened last time. The movement knocks her hood back, and for a moment, the two of them sway dangerously, before the Phantom pulls Christine back to her feet and takes a more cautious stance. But her hood is back, her face exposed, her body too far away from Christine’s. And the shot is clear. A bang shocks Christine back into the railing, and the Phantom staggers. In an impossible, just-so trajectory, the bullet grazes her head—and pulls her mask off with it.

The audience screams, whether from fear of the shot or sight of the Phantom, Christine does not know, but she wheels to find Raoul with his arm outstretched, pistol in hand. “Bar the doors!” he shouts to the militiaman beside him, and rushes to reload.

“My patience for you wears thin, Monsieur le Vicomte!” the Phantom shrieks, her eyes flicking wildly around the auditorium as patrons continue to panic and militiamen run down the aisle. “And you will pay for your arrogance!” She pulls a knife from her boot quick as a flash, and lunges past Christine, who screams involuntarily and watches as the Phantom slashes through a rope near the catwalk. It cracks like a whip as it snaps, and all of a sudden the tinkling of glass joins the pandemonium. All look up as one, to the great crystal chandelier, as it begins to fall.

All but the Phantom, who takes a step backward, ducks under the catwalk railing, and looks at the room once more, anger and grief warring on her face, and then steps back into thin air. Christine screams again, dives for her hand—but she’s too late to catch her, too late to do anything but catch her eyes as she falls through a trapdoor in the stage. That’s it—how she comes and goes, how she earned the name of Phantom. The opera house has secrets, and only the Phantom knows them. She runs down the stairs, jumping back as the massive chandelier crashes mere feet from her into the stage, and dashes through the fires beginning to lick at the set. “Madame Giry! Madame—”

Her guardian is walking quickly, her face a careful mask of neutrality, but Christine can see horror lurking in her eyes. “Madame, you’ve been here longer than anyone—how do I get to her? Where do I find the Phantom?”

“Christine, my dear, I—”

“Don’t lie to me!” she shrieks, and shakes her by the shoulders. “You know, you have to, and you must tell me! Please, please—”

Tears are welling in her eyes. “No, Christine, it’s too—she—it’s too dangerous, Christine!”

“Not for me!” Christine’s crying now too. “Please, it’s her life on the line, I can feel it—I have to help her! She needs someone to be there for her!”

Madame looks stricken; she doesn’t breathe for four seconds, and when she does they’re shallow and pained. “God, forgive me for my sins,” she mutters, and clutches Christine’s shoulder so tightly her nails nearly draw blood. “The mirror,” she hisses. “Carlotta’s dressing room. It slides back. Go.”

Christine nods and tears off, Madame’s voice chasing her down the hall. “Tell her I’m sor—”

She’s below the stage now—Raoul’s guards didn’t quite cut all of the exits off—and she’s alone, rushing for Carlotta’s dressing room. She enters cautiously, and nearly screams when she sees the diva lying on a couch, motionless. But her chest falls and rises, and Christine can see a glass on the floor, spilled onto the carpet. Drugged? It makes her a little less afraid to do what she does next—approaching the mirror and heaving it back with all her strength. It slides slowly and silently, and beyond… a hall she remembers very well. She enters the Phantom’s realm, and makes her way deeper.

***

A wracking sob echoes over the lake as she clumsily paddles the gondola across its waters, and Christine peers into the gloaming, her heart in her throat. It’s not quite as she remembers it—the mirrors are covered with sackcloth, most of the candles extinguished, and the aura of magic and mystery that had seemed to overshadow the place in her haze of champagne and breathlessness is gone. It is cold, and dank, and lonely. She draws the boat to the shore, and looks to the organ, where the shuddering shoulders of a figure seated there draw her attention. She takes a deep breath, steps onto the shore, and opens her mouth. “Are you hurt?”

The Phantom sits up, stiff as a board, and then lowers her hands into her face and sobs again. “Go. Leave me. Forget it. Forget all of this.” There’s blood on her hands, on the starched white of her fine shirt.

“You’re bleeding!” Christine says angrily, and takes an emboldened step forward. “Let me bandage it. Let me _help_ you.”

“No, no, I—I—it is too much!” She sobs again, and backs away from Christine, her hands falling from her face and revealing the deformity beneath. Joseph Buquet’s old songs weren’t so far off the mark—skull-like, pale as death, her face withered and misshapen and pulled back taut around her eyes. It’s horrid at first blush, but Christine fights to maintain her gaze. “I am alone, I have always been alone, I _must_ be alone!”

“You are not!” Christine chases her down, up against the rock wall of the grotto, and seizes the Phantom’s wrists as she moans and tries to wriggle her way away. “And you shall not be ever again!” She glares up at the Phantom, putting every ounce of stubbornness she has into her expression, and the Phantom quiets, looking down at her. “What did you just say to me upstairs?”

“A… a great many things.” The Phantom’s eyes slide sideways, and she squirms. “A… a momentary madness. A trick? Yes—I’ve manipulated you again—betrayal of the worst sort—”

Christine scoffs and digs under her petticoats, seizing the skull pin from her stocking and shoving it into the Phantom’s hand. The Phantom blinks, tears on her misshapen cheeks. “How long have you loved me?”

The Phantom hiccups, and gives a cynical laugh. “Since the night I realized there was a chance I might lose you.” Their hands are still half entangled, and the Phantom taps a long finger against Christine’s engagement ring. “Consider it a proposal, but I’ve thought better of it. Your lover seems to have a much more passionate claim.”

Christine growls in her throat, and reaches into her petticoats again, tearing a strip of the fabric off angrily. “When will—you idiots—realize that I—have my own say in this?” She yanks the Phantom down by her cravat and binds the gunshot wound. “Did either of you wait for my response?”

The Phantom looks chastized, her head bowed to Christine’s hands. “I am rather impatient by nature.”

“Indeed,” Christine mutters, and knots the last of the fabric. “Well. Shall you hear it now?”

The Phantom’s hand strays to the twisted skin of her cheek involuntarily. “I… don’t think I am being given a choice.” She looks sick with fear.

And then a clanking sounds, and they both spin to look toward the portcullises that guard the lair, to where Christine can see Raoul, soaked to the skin in shirtsleeves and looking desperate. “I knew it,” he snarls, and rattles the bars. “Christine, Christine—hold on, Christine—let me in, you bitch!”

The Phantom raises where an eyebrow might have been, and tilts her chin. Her mask—not the physical one, but the persona she maintains—is back up, and Christine can see her body tense. “Well, well, well. I think we have a guest. What an un _paralleled_ delight.” Her eyes are roving over Raoul, looking—Christine thinks—for the gun. She turns, stalks to the lever that raises the gates, and folds her hands behind her back as she strides down the shore and into the water to meet Raoul. 

Christine grits her teeth. “Both of you, just, stop! For one second!” Her plea falls on deaf ears.

“Set her free and let her go with me,” Raoul demands. “Your reign of terror in this theater is over.”

The Phantom shrugs half-doubtfully, and curls her lip. “Your visit to _my_ theater has grown stale, Monsieur. And you interrupt my conversation with my prima donna.” Possessive, but Christine knows it’s a front.

“If you’ve laid a finger on her—” Raoul growls, then cranes to look at Christine, his anger morphing to fear. “Christine, are you alright?”

The Phantom interrupts before Christine can tell him yes. “Did you think that I would harm _her_ ? Why should she pay for _your_ insolence?” And then, quicker than sight, the Phantom lunges for a rope, hidden under the water, and goes for Raoul's throat.

Christine screams in frustration and runs into the water herself, her skirts dragging heavily. “You idiots!” Raoul struggles against the impromptu noose, kneeing the Phantom heavily in the stomach, and the two of them wrestle venomously up to the moment Christine slaps first one, then the other. They stare up, stunned.

“Stop trying to kill people to solve your problems!” she shouts at the Phantom, and elbows her way in between them. “And you, Raoul, stop barrelling in ahead! You’re a fool if you think you can beat her alone!”

Raoul staggers to his feet, and tries to start forward again. The Phantom bares her teeth, and Christine has to hold the two of them apart. “Stop! Stop, stop, stop!” she screams. “Now, you are both going to listen to me, and when I say listen I mean it! You will hear me for once in your goddamned lives—not just my voice but what I have to _say!_ ” She pants with rage, daring them to contradict her, but they don’t. The Phantom stares at her, and Raoul swallows hard. She’s got an audience again.

“Now.” She takes a deep breath—she hadn’t quite figured out what she was going to say before she got their attention. “Raoul. You didn’t believe me at _Hannibal_ , but it’s true—this woman taught me to sing. I owe her everything, Raoul. I owe her my life. You must give her back hers.”

“I’ll never cave to this snake’s demands,” he spits, clenching his fists. “None of it. I am the patron of this opera house, and I will not be ordered about by some—some—”

“Let her _speak!_ ” The Phantom’s voice echoes powerfully throughout the underground cavern. She glares at Raoul with daggers in her eyes.

“Oh, yes, you want her to speak—she’s saying just what you want her to say!” A horrible suspicion enters Raoul’s expression, and he seizes Christine by the arms. “Christine, dearest, has she told you to say these things? You don’t have to, you’re safe with me, Little Lottie—speak your mind!”

“I am!” She yanks her arm away. “Raoul, you don’t listen to me! Little Lottie this, Little Lottie that—I’m a child to you! A doll to dress up!” She balls her fists in frustration. “You running around setting traps and trying to outsmart your adversary—did you bother to ask me whether she was actually an enemy?”

“She’s been stalking you!” Raoul looks disbelieving. “She kidnapped you!”

“She’s a dramatic fool!” Christine throws up her hands in exasperation. “You raise someone in an opera house and you expect them not to create characters for themselves? I’ve been pretending to be a good little girl for fourteen years, and she’s been playing a ghost for longer!” She rounds on the Phantom. “There will be no more of that, mind you. You will be truthful with me or we will be through.” The Phantom swallows, and nods.

“Christine, she’s a murderer,” Raoul says weakly. He’s looking at her with a strange expression. “She killed a man.”

“A horrible man,” the Phantom and Christine say at the same moment, and Christine glares at her suspiciously before expanding on the thought. “A lecherous, vile man who terrorized the dancers. At least after that I could undress in my room without fear of someone peeking through the cracks.”

Raoul’s shaking his head. “Christine, this… this isn’t you,” he insists, and backs away a step or two. “You’ve never thought this way before. I have listened, and you’ve never—”

“I never spoke up,” she mutters. “I should have—shouldn’t have just gone along with what other people wanted for me. But I’m speaking now.”

He shakes his head vehemently. “This isn’t you. You… you’re ill, or in shock. Come on, Christine,” he pleads, his voice close to breaking. “Come away from this awful place. You’re hysterical—”

“I am _NOT!_ ” she snaps, and shakes her fists at her sides. “If you don’t like what I have to say, then, then—” A fit of anger overcomes her, and she works the ring from her finger, brandishes it in his face. “Then you can give this to someone else, who will let you think for her!”

Raoul looks horrified, and then looks over her head, and something clicks in his face. His brows lower, and his eyes burn at the Phantom. “You,” he accuses, and his voice trembles. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it, you depraved, ghastly—”

“This is my own decision!” Christine shouts.

“It’s not, Christine.” Raoul is trying to hold her now, pull her away from the Phantom. “She’s… she’s seduced you—” he spits it like a dirty word— “just so you’ll sing for her, be her prisoner. She’s a madwoman—she—”

But the instant Raoul lays a hand on her, the Phantom is moving again, a knife slipped from her boot and in her hand. “Don’t you touch—”

“No!” Christine holds up a hand as best she can with Raoul tugging on her, and the Phantom freezes. “No more violence.” She turns to Raoul, still preoccupied with action over speech, still ignoring her. “Raoul!”

He turns to her, slowly, and she sighs. She takes his hand, folds the ring into it, and stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Raoul,” she says again, and it’s final. “You are my dear friend. I love you. But I want to be something more than your wife and for that, I need her.” She leaves out the most painful parts; she has no desire to injure. “Go back.”

Raoul vacillates; she can see in his eyes that he doesn’t believe her, still, and that helps her feel more solid in her decision. But he can’t take Christine away without the Phantom’s retaliation, and he can’t fight the Phantom without Christine throwing herself in the middle. He bites his lip, then growls, presses the ring into her hand, and sprints for the gate. “I’ll be back,” he snarls at the Phantom, and gives her one last, pained look, then runs, his shouts for the militiamen echoing through the catacombs as he goes.

Christine watches him go, then turns, and gazes up at the Phantom. “We have to go,” she says sadly. “There’s no peace for us here.”

The Phantom blinks—or does so as best she can. “I… have been here for a very long time.”

“And I as well,” Christine tells her. They’ve been here together for a very long time. “But we can start again. Music is the same in any hall.”

The Phantom makes a strangled sound at that, and Christine takes her hand and pulls her from the lake. “Where _is_ that twenty-thousand franc salary?” she asks, and the Phantom points silently to the desk, where Christine finds rolls and rolls of bank notes, enough to keep them running for a good long while. She’s dripping buckets from her skirts, but she stows some of the cash in her bodice and keeps going. The Phantom’s sword, the manuscripts, the books—

“What is this?” The Phantom’s voice is pained as she strides up the slope and gesticulates at her shoulder. “Why, Christine? You don’t have to run—you nearly have everything you want, don’t you? Carlotta will quit, she will! You’ll be leading lady!”

“Oh, you fool!” Christine slams the desk drawer shut, and turns on her heel to the Phantom. “You lie enough—can you not tell when I’m sparing Raoul’s feelings? This isn’t business.”

The Phantom eyes her warily. “No?”

Christine seizes her hands again, painfully aware of the mob from above that is no doubt seeking a way down to them. “Raoul is dear to me, but he doesn’t listen, and he bores me. Life is a bore without challenge, and you have challenged me constantly—terrified me, confused me, drawn me out and forced me beyond my limits. I want that. It makes me better. Playing this game, making this art with you—it has driven me mad, thrilled me, brought me to tears and made me so, so very happy. So anywhere I go, I want you too.” She squeezes her hands. “If you’ll let me run with you.”

“Yes,” the Phantom says softly, her fingers twitching in Christine’s, and finally gives a real smile—a lovely, uncertain, little-used thing that lights up her face entire. And Christine’s not past the point of no return, not physically at least—but it’s better to make the choice to love willingly, she thinks. She kisses the Phantom, and the twist of excitement in her gut is like nothing she’s felt with anyone else before.

***

The Phantom raises her hand to her mouth when they break apart, breathless, the feeling ghosting over her tongue and setting her mind aflame. There’s no time to let it consume her, though—the memory will have to sustain her till they’re safe again. She drops Christine’s hands, seizes her in a fast embrace, and then joins her at the desk, snatching up her most valuable possessions and tying them into bundles for their flight. Strange echoes sound from above, and the Phantom can tell they’re running out of time.

“Er—have you got a name?”

The Phantom glances over at Christine, who blushes as she snatches up a fine cloak and whisks it over her costume, not making eye contact. The Phantom glances away and bites her lip. “Madame, she… called me Erika, once. I… suppose that’s more of something than ‘opera ghost’ or ‘phantom’… I haven’t had much use for one, truthfully.”

“Erika.” She likes it when Christine says it. “Madame?”

The Phantom inclines her head, presses her spare mask to her face and ties its ribbons. “Your guardian. Giry. She… she brought me here. Watched over me, for a time.”

“She… she told me where to find you. And… that she was sorry.” They’ve all they can carry now—Christine’s stuck in her sodden costume but there’s no fixing that now. The Phantom pulls back one of her own mirrors to reveal a passage, and ushers Christine in, blinking back tears. Hmm. Inscrutable Madame.

When the militia arrives, the lair is empty, and no trace remains to the searchers, unless it is the extremely fine engagement ring lying upon the bench of a subterranean organ.

***

The passage releases them into the courtyard of the opera house, the main auditorium still crackling with flame when they emerge. The Phantom peeks out first, then pulls Christine forward by the hand, and together the two of them make for the street. A cab, an inn outside the city, and onward. They’re nearly there when the click of cane on cobblestone reaches their ears.

Christine wheels to find Meg and Madame Giry watching them from the shadows. “Don’t try—” the Phantom starts, her lip curled, but stops. Because Meg has run forward, hugged Christine tight, and then placed a suitcase in her hand.

“I’ll miss you,” she whimpers, and retreats. “Send me letters.”

Madame Giry approaches as well, her expression more measured, and holds out another bag. “Supplies,” she explains quietly. “Clothes, disguises if you need them, something to eat tonight. I imagine you have money?”

The Phantom nods stiffly, and Christine watches the two regard each other, equally proud and equally unwilling to broach whatever is between them. At last, Madame Giry takes the Phantom’s hand and folds it around the handle of the suitcase. She kisses the Phantom’s cheeks, kisses Christine’s, and waves. “Go. I hear Vienna’s operas are… quite nearly as good as ours.”

The Phantom tilts her head thoughtfully. “Indeed? Well, perhaps they shall be even better soon.” She squeezes Christine’s hand, and Christine squeezes it back, and together they nod and continue on. The cab they hail is dark away from the leaping flames, the driver uninterested. It is hardly long at all before the music of the night—the horses’ hooves on pavement, the click of the wheels, the rush of winter wind—lulls them to sleep on each others’ shoulders.


End file.
